Egor Melnikov

According to investigators, Melnikov's friend Mikhail Sidorov suggested he set fire to a relay cabinet. On January 21, 2024, they conspired with a group of people armed with all the necessary equipment—a crowbar, a nailer, plastic bottles filled with gasoline, and a video recording device—to arrive at the specified coordinates of the relay cabinet, located between the Mark and Lobnya stations on the Savyolovskii line of the Moscow Railway. They broke into the cabinet and set it on fire. Sidorov set the fire while Melnikov filmed the action on his phone. They were unable to cause significant damage to the device "due to the presence of an automatic fire suppression system inside the relay cabinet." However, it was later determined that the damage from their actions amounted to 20,752 rubles and 53 kopecks. After fleeing the scene on a taxi, when they were heading home, the young men sent a video recording to an unidentified person, and a cryptocurrency reward was deposited into an account opened by Melnikov. The young men split the money between them, with Melnikov giving the majority to Sidorov, keeping only a small portion for himself as compensation for the gasoline purchased for the arson.